BL Premium reports that Shoprite, which is SA’s largest corporate employer, expects to create about 10,000 more jobs in the next 12 months with its plans to open 309 new stores across its brands.

CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said the target figure referred to direct jobs within the group, with many more supported indirectly through service providers such as cleaners, trolley collectors and security staff. In the year to end-June, the group opened 281 new stores and created nearly 9,000 jobs. It spent almost R4.9bn on new stores and upgrades, and plans to leverage a further R7.9bn in the next financial year. Shoprite’s new employee base far surpasses that of rivals, with the group managing to employ about 10% of Pick n Pay’s entire workforce in just one year.

The hiring spree comes after Shoprite reported another strong set of results. Engelbrecht said group’s competitive edge came from keeping its internal food inflation lower than the national average. Shoprite measures inflation based on actual customer baskets rather than Stats SA’s fixed list. At some point, it claimed, internal food inflation was as low as 1.9%. “It’s not true that prices never come down. In just one month, we had 13,300 items that were cheaper than the year before,” Engelbrecht stated. Shoprite plans to deepen its push into adjacent businesses, including clothing, pet stores, outdoor outlets, and health and personal care.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Nompilo Goba at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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